An engaging blend of perceptive biography and vivid narrative history.
The American Revolution and its aftermath as experienced by the siblings made famous in Hamilton.
The many people who saw Lin-Manuel Miranda’s mega-popular musical may be surprised to learn in this atmospheric account that, far from introducing Alexander Hamilton to her sister Eliza, Angelica Schuyler first met him at their wedding and that she herself was married. Brother- and sister-in-law did indeed develop a flirtatious, increasingly intense relationship, and Vail drops one tantalizing hint that it may have turned physical, but she also leaves no doubt that Hamilton’s primary devotion was always to Eliza, portrayed here as a smart, blunt woman with more integrity than her glamorous older sister (whom the author doesn’t seem to much like). Vail pays equally shrewd attention to character and circumstances as she traces the lives of Philip and Catharine Schuyler’s two eldest daughters through the birth of the United States and the decades that followed. Other siblings and relatives also take turns in a crowded but highly readable text stuffed with delightfully gossipy character sketches (“stout, party-loving Henry Knox, and his equally substantial and jolly wife, Lucy”) and savory descriptions of clothing and food. Hamilton comes across as ambitious and driven, greatly needing the support of his calmer, more sensible wife. The financial wheelings and dealings of Angelica’s husband, John Church, offer a case study in the wide-open nature of the late colonial and post-independence American economy, which Hamilton sought to strengthen in measures highly unpopular with his state-rights-oriented opponents. His death in a duel with Aaron Burr left Eliza with crippling debts, and the book’s final 100-plus pages, which chronicle her 50 years as a widow, show a tough, resourceful woman determined to provide for her children and honor her husband’s memory. Meanwhile, Angelica’s husband goes bankrupt, and the sisters come to realize that the privileged world they grew up in is gone.
An engaging blend of perceptive biography and vivid narrative history.Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2025
ISBN: 9780374254377
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: yesterday
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
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